Good Things Come to Those Who Binge: An Exploration of Binge-Watching Related Behavior

Abstract

The rise of Video-on-Demand (VoD) services on the media market has produced key mutations in the television series industry at all levels. The dynamics of the tripartite relation between production, distribution and consumption gained new forms when these new services broke the traditional lineage of television and adopted the aesthetics of media catalogs that users can access whenever and wherever they want. VoD portals have triggered a process of usage democratization that has led to the unprecedented popularization of binge-watching as a new norm for the consumption of TV series. The present study explores binge-watching as a way of spending leisure time and the motivations behind the users' decisions to engage in extended viewing sessions. Certain specific behaviors and emotions related to marathon viewing are discussed, as well as the connection between genre and extended watching sessions or users' general attitude towards binge-watching.

Understanding the Phenomenon of Binge-Watching—A Systematic Review

“…It can be a very positive and highly exciting experience; however, it is important to remember that the said immersive character of binge-watching can also be conducive to the risk of addiction. Furthermore, the Uses and Gratification Theory emphasises that using new technologies, including binge-watching, can be a very entertaining activity that caters to an individual's specific needs [19,20,30,42,71].…”

Binging on the heartbreak: The effect of binge-watching on narrative engagement and parasocial breakups.

“…The link between binge-watching and parasocial breakups is not, at present, well understood. Boca (2019) suggested that binge-watching may be associated with stronger feelings of sadness, anxiety, and frustration when there are no more episodes to watch. These feelings of distress are likely due to the way the TV watching format may condition viewers to view waiting.…”

Anxiety-Depressive Syndrome and Binge-Watching Among Young Adults

“…Socioecological model of health indicates that social and cultural phenomenons contribute to the variability of individual's health (Słońska, 1994). The development of streaming platforms led to growth of popularity of bingewatching and changed the way how people consume television (Boca, 2019). Similarly to other addictions to technologies, binge-watching could be perceived as a behavior which usually is not associated with high levels of social harm (Grzegorzewska and Cierpiałkowska, 2018;Ort et al, 2021).…”

“…The newest studies search for the answer how healthy way of spending free time can change into the problematic bingewatching. The occurrence of anti-health form of binge-watching could be related to the new construction of narrative created by streaming platforms, characteristics of video on demand platforms, and individual psychological predispositions to development of problematic use of media (Alter, 2017;Grzegorzewska and Cierpiałkowska, 2018;Boca, 2019;Brand et al, 2019). Research has shown that binge-watching is an event that is very engaging both emotionally and cognitively, which may lead to loss of control over the number of watched episodes (Schweidel and Moe, 2016;Flayelle et al, 2017;Granow et al, 2018).…”